Beyond the Here and Now
by ice73
Summary: Set after the last episode of Arjuna, this is a little look at Juna and Chris and their world. Not connected with any of the other Arjuna stories I wrote.


Earth Girl Arjuna © 2001 ARJUNA PROJECT/ Sotsu Agency/ TV Tokyo. This work is not intended for commercial gain or to otherwise challenge these copyrights.

* * *

Beyond the Here and Now

Juna Ariyoshi laughed soundlessly. For the first time in two years, she was finally free, as free as any mortal like her could be free. She could finally go out for a walk.

With excitement quivering in her voice, she called, _I'm going out!_ to the empty corridor as her hand grasped the doorknob.

_Let me come with you,_ came a formless voice in her mind.

_But you can't,_ she protested. _You'll get tired._

_I'll be fine. I'll behave myself, I promise. _

Juna sighed, looking down the empty corridor behind her. _Oh, alright. If you give me any trouble, I'll Aura Wave you right back into your room._

There was a soft chuckle in the back of her mind. _I'd like to see you try._

A lone figure appeared at the end of the corridor. His shock of white hair framed a thin face; his clothes gave the impression of hanging loosely on him. He supported himself on a segmented metal cane. A small brown bag was slung around his shoulder.

His eyes were alive and bemused as he limped over to her. Juna reached out and took him by the elbow.

_If Cindy were here she'd have a fit, Chris,_ she said. He leaned slightly on her, and she could feel the amusement in him at delaying her departure. It was like seeing a smile, but with one's feelings instead of one's eyes.

"Well, she is not, and you and I are. Come on, you said you were leaving."

He walked slowly and deliberately to the door, his step more sure and steady than it was during that terrible time he held the Raaja in him.

Juna opened the door and waited until the flaxen-haired boy emerged into the sunshine. _It's so nice to be able to go out without fear of getting shot,_ she commented.

Chris had tilted his head upward and stood there for a moment with his eyes closed, the sunlight full on his face. "It is, isn't it?"

Juna looked towards the gate. The stone-flagged path to it lay sparkling in the sun, waiting to bring them out into the wide world. The dew-sprinkled grass of the soft lawn hummed its quiet song of growing as it pushed its roots through the soil. The trees on the property, all regimented into borders and rows, wore the colors of the cool, wet summer. In the hazy distance, a low green hill rose into the watery blue sky.

_Has it really been three years?_ she remarked to herself. _It seems like we were in Japan only a few weeks ago . . . . _

"You miss them."

_Of course I do. Do you miss Cindy?_

_Do you miss your boyfriend?_

_Well, yeah . . . but I know he's got some things to take care of back home. _Juna chuckled inwardly; physically, she let out a snort._ I don't think he would've appreciated me getting him into the middle of a Chicago gun battle._

Chris laughed quietly. "Ah, yes. Took quite a bit of creative thinking on SEED's part to cover that one up, didn't it?"

_We _are_ safe, aren't we, Chris?_ Juna asked, her voice suddenly full of worry. _No more midnight car chases, agents with tranquilizer guns, looney-bin TIs—_

_Yes, Juna. We're safe now. As I've told you before, there's no reason for them to kidnap us now. Us or our loved ones._

Silence settled around them like the grip of a cold, stifling hand as they recalled those memories. They started walking.

----------oOo----------

They stood at a street corner, watching people going about their usual business. The town was a small one, with a name that the TI-1 could pronounce effortlessly but which Juna couldn't even mind-speak. They certainly didn't take it up in English as a Foreign Language class.

Juna saw Chris watching avidly, and remarked on how interested he seemed to be.

"Being ill robbed me of many things, Juna," he replied. "Things people tend to take for granted. I've wanted to stand like this and watch the world go by for a long time."

_Well, could we do this world-watching over there?_ Juna pointed to a nearby pub, whose large windows fronted the same street. _I want to see if they've got anything good to eat._

Chris pointedly looked at the satchel he wore, and at the backpack which Juna carried. "Oh, alright." He shrugged. "Some habits die hard, I guess."

----------oOo----------

They ate their salads quietly in one of the booths beside the picture windows.

_You didn't answer my question,_ Juna cajoled teasingly. _Cindy?_

_Must I put it in words, Juna? Of course I miss Cindy. She could be acerbic at times, but she made me laugh and was unfailingly kind and helpful._

Juna sniffed. _Hmph. I wouldn't call "If anything happens to Chris, I'll murder you!" very kind _or _helpful._

Both their thoughts wandered back to the last time they had both seen Cindy. It was in Djibouti, where the russet-haired, wild-eyed girl had helped them escape a SEED trap by acting as a decoy.

"What are you waiting for? Go!" she had yelled at them while half-hanging out of a black utility van's door. "Juna, if anything happens to Chris, I'll murder you!" Then she was gone, ducking into the vehicle as it screamed down a dirty street, disappearing into the night.

Chris grinned as Juna put on a disgruntled expression. "To me, I mean. She was kind to me."

_I bet she wishes she could be with you now._

Nodding, Chris took a sip from his glass of water. "But she knows Onizuka and everyone else at SEED Japan need all the help they can get." The smile faded a bit. "She has to learn to live without me, as well. She hasn't really had the chance to live her own life."

_As far as SEED will let her, you mean._ Juna speared some lettuce leaves with her fork and chewed.

Chris radiated disapproval. "Do you think so? The barriers around the things in her life," he said, "are of her own making, Juna. So are yours and mine."

_What? I-I don't understand._

"You could leave SEED any time you want to. No one would stop you—could stop you, in fact. If they tried, you'd probably shove Ashura down their throats or drop a building on them." Juna winced at the sarcasm in Chris' voice. "So why don't you?"

_Because . . . because I want to protect people like my family . . . Tokio, Sayuri . . . ._

"But if you wanted to leave, you could, couldn't you?"

Juna nodded.

"Then why don't you?" Chris pinned her with his intense blue eyes. Juna felt like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car. "_Why don't you?_"

_Because they'll get hurt . . . ._

_So what if they get hurt?_

Juna's eyes flashed. _Are you crazy? What kind of question is that?_

_Why don't you want them to get hurt?_

_Because . . . because they matter to me._

_Why do they matter to you?_

_Because . . . I love them._

"And a chain made of roses is still a chain. I rest my case."

----------oOo----------

After lunch Chris returned to the SEED safe house, with the admonition that Juna not tire herself out. She continued wandering around town, peeking into little shops and staying for a while in the park she found, lingering among its ivy-covered walls, old well-manicured hedges and shingled, weather-stained gazebos. All the while she was aware of the green hill that she had seen earlier that morning looming nearby like a sentinel. She asked a passing policeman about it and learned that it was something of a local tourist destination. Of course, the man was shocked at the voice invading his mind, so Juna, not wanting any trouble, thanked him and made herself quickly scarce via teleportation. It was just to a nearby street corner—long-range stuff really drained her, she had discovered—and from there she headed on her way to the hill.

----------oOo----------

It was mid-afternoon when she reached the place and began her hike. The sun was beating down on her, so she wore a floppy white hat to protect her fair skin. She munched on rice crackers as she walked. One could never be sure—there was an instance back home when she ate some of the gruel that her mother had prepared, only to become witness to the suffering of a worker who had laid hands on the grain. She saw him, burned dark by the sun, sweating as he worked for a pittance. She saw him return to the hovel he lived in, and the scanty food he shared with his thin, care-worn wife and quiet children. In the corner of the hut was one of his brood, sick with tuberculosis. She bore witness as he died while his parents watched, as they kept calling his name, wiping the spittle from his lips and bathing his fevered brow, urging him to hang on. The doctor arrived three days too late.

And in the small dining space of their Hong Kong apartment, the convalescent girl's sudden, inexplicable outrush of tears startled her mother and sister.

----------oOo----------

The place was deserted, except for a couple coming down the trail that led to the hilltop. Juna watched them interestedly as they neared her—she, pale-skinned and fair-haired, with grey eyes and a wide, expressive mouth, he, taller and square-jawed, dark of hair and eyes, with furred forearms and neck-hollow hinting at his hairiness. She looked like some slender greenhouse flower, delicate and fragile; he looked like a person unaccustomed to happiness and glad to have found it. And both of them were totally enamored with each other, giving her only a perfunctory nod as she passed them by.

Which was just as well, Juna thought as she tugged the brim of her hat lower. She didn't relish being the secret sharer of thoughts as intimate as the couple's. It only reminded her of how far away Tokio was, and the last time they had seen each other.

----------oOo----------

"So that's it then," said the thin young man with the straggly facial hair as he huddled with Juna beside a campfire in a derelict warehouse near Kobe's Port City. They were holding hands and seated facing each other. It was early evening, and the devastated city was dark and eerily quiet. "You have to leave."

Juna nodded. She was tired and shaking. _I want to ask—would you like to come with me? I-I'm sure I could work something out with Miss Wong or Commander Onizuka. I know I'm being selfish, Tokio, but I don't know when I'll come back or if I'll come back and . . . I'm scared._

Tokio squeezed her hands. "If SEED loses you, they won't be able to fight off the Raaja. So you should be safe. Everything will be alright. You'll see."

_It's so ironic,_ Juna said as she smiled and squeezed back, feeling the texture and warmth of his skin under her fingers,_ that you should be comforting me, instead of the other way around. _

"Look around you, Juna. All this destruction came about as a result of my old man's hobby. This is the least I can do."

_I'm so sorry, Tokio. He didn't mean for this to happen, I'm sure of it. Besides, there's more than enough blame to go around._

"Yeah. I didn't expect the whole board of directors of dad's company to be arrested. And maybe—" Tokio looked shamefaced "—if I hadn't dismissed you as a . . . what I mean to say is, if I had believed in you sooner, things might not have come to this."

Juna inclined her head, puzzled. _How so?_

"We could've both tried to convince him. You could've focused on him instead of worrying about me. Stuff like that." Tokio sighed. "Am I useless or what?"

_Oh, Tokio. _It rent Juna's heart to feel his shame. _You know that isn't true. Without you Sayuri and other people wouldn't have survived. You were the first to get over the mountains, remember? You were able to get help._

"Hah! Some help. It's been almost nine months since the accident and this place is still a mess."

_There's nothing you can do about that. But you know, there are some things you can still remedy._

It was Tokio's turn to look baffled. "Such as?"

Juna smiled and drew him closer, wrapping her arms around his and pressing them against her heart.

----------oOo----------

They made love in the mountains that night. Somehow Juna got Tokio to a deserted onsen she had found. They had bathed and rested, watched the full moon rise, and she had given her virginity to him under its twilight. Unsure of when she would return, or if their relationship would even survive the trials they were going through, she swore she would remember the sight of him over leaning her, backlit by the xanthous moon-globe and the countless stars that filled the night sky. Now, years later, the memory still hadn't dimmed, and she was proud of the fact. Chris would probably call her a sentimental fool if he knew, but she didn't care.

----------oOo----------

At the top of the hill she sat down under an old, old beech. It rustled in a friendly, welcoming way under the sun, as if glad to see someone not busy wooing or brooding for a change. No one came up to the top, and Juna just sat there for a long time, feeling the breeze blowing round the hilltop. The rustling changed to low murmurs, and Juna leaned back against the trunk and looked up at the sky through the leafy canopy. The murmurer told her about the itself, about the days and the seasons, the warmth of the sun, the taste of untainted wind, the cold, and the rain; as she listened, she felt old boughs break off and new leaves sprout, and sap freeze under the sharp, icy grip of nearly a century of winters; birds she heard, singing across the years, dancing and courting in distant Springs that would never return, unremembered and unhallowed by human memory. Dawns and sunsets that stretched into decades past passed before her mind's eye in kaleidoscope-shadowed parade. Time became meaningless as she continued to wander on through the spectacle that made up one life, the same power that had scored her before with slow-healing wounds now moving her very soul with unspeakable delight and boundless wonder.

When the visions died away, Juna found herself in the dappled-green, blue-skied world again. Still embedded in that half-dream, half-awake state of communion and quantum disruption, she wordlessly began to talk about herself. The great mass of cellulose and lignin behind her back gave no sign it could understand or even knew that she was trying to communicate; but for some reason the act made her feel a little less lonely, one living thing talking to another living thing, as her vagabond soul sought its way back to her and slowly took root once more in the here and now.


End file.
